Back to basics: Unleashing the power of switches with simple hacks

Table of Contents

Seminars-1-2026 - This article is part of a series.

Part 1: Academic Leadership in Global Standards: From Research Projects to IETF and 6G

Part 2: Human-AI Collaboration

Part 3: This Article

Part 4: Traffic and Energy Load Balancing in Cooperative Dual-Powered Green Cellular Networks

Part 5: From Ground to Sky: Enhancing UAV Connectivity with 5G and Beyond (IEEE Distinguished Lecture)

Part 6: Labdoo: Enabling Global Education - One School at a Time

Part 7: From the Internet of Musical Things to the Musical Metaverse: enabling technologies and open challenges

Abstract #

Switches or bridges are the fundamental Layer 2 forwarders in network architecture. However, often unnoticed, they also naturally bridge the worlds of computing and networking. For instance, the classical learning process a switch performs when forwarding traffic follows the principles of a Breadth-First Search (BFS) algorithm—but what are the key differences? In this seminar, we go back to the roots to show how small modifications can enable switches to take on a wide range of functionalities—from forwarding to resource discovery and location mapping. To this end, we will explore the IEEE 802 standard and examine how these potential new services fit into software-based and programmable networks, with a special focus on 5G and beyond, including both wired and wireless use cases, into the cloud continuum.

Bio #

Elisa Rojas is an Associate Professor at the University of Alcalá (UAH), while she earned her PhD in Information and Communication Technologies in 2013. Her professional background includes a postdoctoral tenure at IMDEA Networks, followed by her role as Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Telcaria Ideas S.L., an SME specializing in the research and development of virtualized network solutions. Additionally, she has served as a lecturer for the Master’s program on NFV and SDN for 5G Networks at Carlos III University of Madrid (UC3M). Her primary research interests encompass softwarized and programmable networks (SDN/NFV/P4), Low-Power and Lossy Networks (LLNs/IoT), routing protocols, and cloud- edge computing. Dr. Rojas has also been a visiting researcher at several prestigious institutions, including the University of Cambridge (UK), NEC Labs (Germany), Fujitsu Labs (Japan), FBK CREATE-NET (Italy), and Osaka University (Japan). Active in the scientific community, she has chaired numerous international conferences and reviewed over 100 articles for JCR-indexed journals. She currently serves as an Associate Editor for Elsevier Computer Networks and Springer Telecommunication Systems.